


That Isn't A Normal Cat

by Rellanka



Series: A Year Of Cloudy Skies [53]
Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Found Family, M/M, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24783787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rellanka/pseuds/Rellanka
Summary: There's something a little different about Cloud and Vincent's cat.
Relationships: Cloud Strife/Vincent Valentine
Series: A Year Of Cloudy Skies [53]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1697269
Comments: 9
Kudos: 199





	That Isn't A Normal Cat

**Author's Note:**

> Uh, ditto to what I said the day before yesterday about that mental health break. Although this time it was more like I had these fics all ready yesterday and fell asleep before posting them. Sorry, y'all.

By the time Tifa got back with the kids, Vincent and Cloud had mostly worked out a routine. One of them would stay home with the kitten, just in case, while the other either went off on deliveries or on a job from Reeve. Kitten feeding took place about every four hours, and was done by both of them if they both were home. Somewhere between all of that were conversations about their feelings and their future as they worked out the details of their life together from then on. 

Cloud privately wondered how Tifa would treat this emotionally mature, responsible version of Cloud when she got back. 

The answer was pretty much the same as always. 

“Does this mean that you’re sticking around?” Tifa asked Vincent briskly with a raised brow and crossed arms after the revelation of their relationship, “Because you’d better. I didn’t put up with years of Cloud’s hopeless pining just for him to have to pine even more **after** the two of you got together. I’ll start dragging you back here myself if you’re gone for too long and make him sad again.” 

“Tifa.” Cloud snapped in protest, frowning hard at his friend, “Look, Vincent, you don’t have to. If you don’t want to stay…” 

Above everything else, he never wanted to force Vincent into something he didn’t want. And especially not to force him to be with Cloud if he didn’t want to be.

“No, she’s right and it’s fine. I’ve caused us both more than enough pain while trying to protect my own feelings. I _want_ to stay with you, Cloud. Very much so.” Vincent said. 

“We both did. And… I’d like that.” Cloud met his eyes, and they stared at each other in a shared, silent conversation, before Tifa abruptly broke the silence and the moment. 

“I can already tell that **that’s** going to get old fast.” She said dryly. 

She ruined her own frustrated image, though, when she grabbed Cloud’s head and pressed a fierce kiss to his forehead. 

“I’m really happy for you.” She whispered softly. “ **Both** of you.” She continued with a smile thrown over her should Vincent’s way before she moved off to the side to join Denzel and Marlene where they were crouched on the floor cooing over the newest-and fluffiest- addition to the family. 

And that settled that, Cloud guessed. 

He turned to grin at Vincent, and then they both walked over to gush over their fur baby with the rest of their family. 

***

Cloud would later forever insist that he was the first to notice something was odd about their kitten, loving named Freyja. 

He was the last to verbally **acknowledge** that something was weird, he would admit, but the first to **spot** a-less-than-normal aspect of her. More specifically of her fur. 

It was during her monthly bath, and Cloud was frowning softly at the dark spots that were appearing in her golden coat. They looked- they looked a lot like the beginning of a coeurl’s spots, and Cloud hadn’t been aware that housecats could get coats that similar. 

But he eventually brushed it off. Some housecats were probably descendants of coeurl’s, weren’t they? Some of them were bound to have some coloring similarities. 

It was probably nothing. 

***

It was a little less than two months later that Tifa came to him with a furrow on her brow. 

“Cloud.” She said slowly, “I don’t think that your cat… is actually a cat.” 

Cloud put down the book he was reading to eye her, “Of course Freyja is a cat, Tifa. What else could she be?” 

Tifa’s mouth twisted unsurely, as she shifted her eyes to Freyja laying peacefully on the couch beside Cloud, darkly-spotted coat clean and shiny, and long, twisting whiskers currently relaxed in sleep. Freyja looked adorable, head resting on Cloud’s lap and purring unconsciously as her tail twitched at whatever she was dreaming of. Cloud stroked a hand down her back and smiled fondly down at his little girl. 

When he looked back up, Tifa was giving him **that** look. 

The one she gave Barret sometimes, when he was being particularly obsessive over Marlene. Cloud didn’t know how to feel about it currently being directed towards him, though he suddenly felt a fierce empathy for the other man.

“Never mind.” She said, ruffling his hair and then the fur on Freyja’s head, “I’m sure everything will be fine.” 

She walked off without another word as Cloud was carefully stroking Freyja’s fur back into place. She hated it when her fur was like that. 

***

“Ouch.” Cloud yelped as a strong jolt of electricity shot through him. 

Cloud must have had a **lot** of static electricity in him for the metal of the bike to have shocked him that hard. 

He ignored the upset look on Freyja’s face as he continued to try to pull her from the bike. 

“C’mon, sweetheart, you know I can’t take you with me this time…” He cooed softly to her-

while also carefully ignoring the way that her whiskers were sparking slightly. 

***

Cloud stared, only barely managing to hold back his laughter. 

“Vincent.” He choked out breathlessly. “Your _hair_.” 

Vincent looked back at him sedately from where he sat on the couch petting a purring Freyja, hair haloed around his head like a mane as strands of it stuck straight out from his head in a mockery of gravity. 

“I’m aware.” Vincent said in a placid tone that had a hint of warning beneath it of possible repercussions should Cloud laugh or say _anything_ about his situation. 

It was difficult, but somehow Cloud managed not to.

At least, not until he left the room.

***

It was almost getting to the point where Cloud couldn't live in denial anymore. Cloud sighed as Freyja used her far too long, oddly shaped whiskers to zap a lamp on the desk, causing the bulb to pop and Freyja to jump straight into the air before darting to join he and Vincent on the bed. 

"There, there." Vincent said in a muffled voice with his mouth still pressed again Cloud's shoulder, reaching out to pat Freyja's shivering body pressed tightly against Cloud. "It's alright, Deathkitten. The scary lamp can't hurt you." 

Cloud didn't really appreciate Vincent's nickname for their cat. Not at all. ~~That was a total lie, a large part of him- the part not in denial- thought it was hilarious, and Vincent **knew** it.~~

***

Connected as they were, Cloud **felt** the jolt that went through Vincent right after the deep, angry growl that sounded through the room. Tensing, Vincent rolled off of Cloud and landed in a battle ready crouch, and both of their eyes turned to find the cause of the interruption on the other side of the bed. 

"Freyja!" Cloud snapped angrily as he confronted the cat. He hadn't even known she was in here. 

She put her ears back, knowing that that tone in Cloud's voice meant she had done something wrong, even as she continued fiercely glaring at Vincent. 

"It's alright." Vincent said after he had relaxed, something amused in his eyes warning Cloud that he wasn't going to like what Vincent was going to say next, "We haven't done anything when she was in the room before, have we? I believe that female coeurls help each other fight off males that want to mount when it isn't mating season. Female cubs, in particular, are known for being protective. Of their mothers." 

Vincent was definitely laughing in every way but out loud by the end, and Cloud turned his fierce glare his boyfriend's way. 

"Let's see how she feels when I mount **you**." He snapped, getting out of the bed and pushing Vincent flat to ride him right there on their floor. 

Cloud may prefer bottoming, but let no one say he was less dominant than Vincent in the bedroom. 

***

“Okay.” Cloud finally said after Freyja had gotten larger than a medium sized dog and was still growing, “Freyja probably isn’t a cat.” 

“Finally!” Tifa cheered from the kitchen.

Vincent, who Cloud had been leaning against on the couch in the living room, chuckled softly and pressed a kiss to Cloud’s forehead. 

“I’m sure our daughter appreciates you acknowledging her identity choice, my Storm. Maybe now she can stop acting like she still fits on our shoulders.” Vincent murmured into his hair.

Vincent was just sore over the time that Freyja had tried to leap for his shoulder from behind and instead knocked him flat on the ground, face first. 

It had been a beautiful thing. 

Marlene had been playing with her camera at the time, and had gotten **pictures**. 

“Hoping so for a personal reason, Vincent?” Cloud teased. 

“Hmph, forgetting the less then dignified moments she’s caused you, Cloud?” Vincent returned. 

Well, Cloud couldn’t just let that implication go, now could he?

And so Cloud’s revelation devolved into he and Vincent one upping each other about the embarrassing situations their fur daughter had gotten them into while Tifa called in comments of her own from the kitchen. 

It didn’t matter if Freyja was a cat, or what most people viewed as a monster. 

She was **theirs** , and she fit into their family perfectly fine just as she was.

**Author's Note:**

> Coeurl cubs are tiny and just like kittens when young, a survival tactic brought about by their magic to protect them from human hunters. It’s only when they hit about three months that they start showing a coeurl’s coloring, shape, and size. Coeurl’s only typically have one cub at a time. 
> 
> As to how Freyja was in that alley, well. Freyja had snuck away from the den her mother had placed her in, and had been lost for some time when Cloud and Vincent found her. If it wasn’t for the natural magic that coeurl’s have, she would have been dead before they discovered her.


End file.
